- 12 minutes ago
Global music has expanded far beyond its borders, with genres like Latin and Afrobeats reaching audiences around the world at a rate like never before. Live from Billboard Latin Music Week, Billboard On the Record host Kristin Robinson is joined by Ghazi, CEO/founder of EMPIRE, to discuss how he has grown the label from a hip-hop-focused company into a global music powerhouse with signings ranging from Latin America, Southeast Asia and North Africa. They explore why Ghazi invested in certain genres before they were fully monetized, and how visa and immigration issues in the U.S. are affecting Latin artists’ touring schedules.
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Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
Host:
Kristin Robinson
Executive Producers:
Diona DaCosta
Jade Watson
Produced By:
Kayla Forman
Mateo Vergara
Edited By:
Rachel Derbyshire
Love what you hear? Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe so you never miss an episode of Billboard On The Record.
Love what you hear? Follow Billboard On The Record on Instagram, TikTok, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube @billboard so you never miss an episode.
Billboard On The Record is a podcast in partnership with SickBird Productions.
Host:
Kristin Robinson
Executive Producers:
Diona DaCosta
Jade Watson
Produced By:
Kayla Forman
Mateo Vergara
Edited By:
Rachel Derbyshire
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:04all right hello and welcome to this special latin music week live installment of on the record
00:11our music business podcast here at billboard and sickbird productions i'm your host kristen
00:16robinson and i'm joined by gazi what's up what's up what's up give him a warm welcome come on guys
00:23all right okay i feel very honored to be with you here today gazi because we're going to talk about
00:29kind of the globalization of u.s music listening u.s music consumers are more open to global genres
00:34more than ever and empire has really pushed into global markets in the last decade so i wanted to
00:42start off by talking about empire you got started in 2010 it was primarily hip-hop based in the beginning
00:49but now you're in all sorts of markets you've really pushed into afro beats latin music even
00:56southeast asian pop so tell me about why that is what you wanted to do you wanted to globalize
01:02after starting in hip-hop i mean we started with hip-hop but the first genre you moved into after
01:08hip-hop was reggaeton to be honest um i felt like reggaeton was suffering from the same things that
01:14hip-hop was suffering from which was piracy and it uh it made it look like it was a genre
01:20that wasn't
01:21being monetized properly but it wasn't that it wasn't being monetized properly it's just human
01:26behavior heading caught up to subscription services yet in latin america and so i knew that it was going
01:32to work so we started signing reggaeton artists in 2011 but then what happened was i kind of got over
01:38my skis and i started signing big artists that started doing big streaming numbers and then sony and
01:43universal came and hunted all my artists down and so you know the empire was seven employees at the
01:50time so i was way ahead of my you know we were way ahead of the curve and we didn't
01:56have the resources
01:56of the money to retain the artists and so um but yeah that was the first genre that we went
02:03into after
02:04hip-hop because i was it reminded me of all the things that was going through with hip-hop and
02:09then
02:09i had a lot of uh friends in the bay area that was listening to reggaeton like in the early
02:142000s
02:15so they had introduced me to the genre at a really young age yeah and then um after that we
02:20started
02:20diving into things like dance hall and reggae and then we started venturing into southeast asia and
02:27um africa west africa south africa north africa so africa on its own as a continent there's so many
02:33languages so many cultures but i always knew that like globalization was going to be the wave
02:38yeah well i'm glad you touched on the african continent there are so many cultural differences
02:44across different countries there and i'm sure that's difficult to navigate as an american moving
02:50in and also wanting to make sure that you're doing kind of cultural appreciation rather than
02:54appropriation so how did you approach some of these markets where you are personally not part of
02:59the culture but you want to service that culture and help them reach a global audience
03:03i mean that really honestly goes back to my childhood so excuse me goes back to my childhood
03:10when i was a kid my dad would watch me and i would be sitting down reading the sports page
03:16he would yank
03:16the sports page out of my hand and say read the world report understand what's going on with the
03:21world and so i was always very um culturally curious and always read about you know what was going on
03:28in
03:28other countries what languages people spoke i would look at the world map and memorize the capitals
03:33of different countries and i just was always like a curious kid so the first opportunity i got to
03:40jump on a plane and go visit foreign countries uh to sign artists to me was super fascinating i was
03:45like
03:46hip-hop is about to help me see the world um and you know i've been traveling ever since uh
03:51i'll be in four
03:53countries this week alone so it's a great travel schedule yeah having music take you around the
03:58world to sit with creatives and you know you're hearing new languages um new styles of fashion food
04:06um you know just the geopolitical structure of different places and how they function and how telecom
04:14services work and it's just there's so much to every specific place that you go to that's so nuanced
04:20that i find it fascinating and exciting and it's like an opportunity to conquer something new yeah
04:27and i'm wondering what challenges you've found in pushing into global markets because some of these
04:31places are still emerging yeah and some of them might not have the same kind of infrastructure that
04:36the united states has so tell me about that i mean the general challenge is usually starts with
04:42monetization like how do you justify going into a market if there's no money coming out of the market
04:48um so generally we'll try to go into countries that have a diaspora language so that language can touch
04:55tier one countries where we can monetize better so you can say hey okay cool i'm going into i don't
05:02know
05:02um nigeria it's not a heavily monetized market but it has a large population afrobeat is a poppin genre
05:10how do we triangulate that genre okay there's a large pocket of nigerians that live in these countries in
05:16europe large pocket in the dmv in the united states a large pocket in houston these are heavily monetized
05:22markets maybe you lift your blended rate and then you start to put infrastructure in that company you
05:27start to hire locally excuse me country not company but you start to hire locally uh we usually fly people
05:34into san francisco to the headquarters and then we train them and then we send them back and then we
05:39visit and so you get this kind of like bilateral uh cultural infusion going both ways and then
05:45you know just you start to see things kind of trend up we did the same thing in latin america
05:50um started to put people on the ground in different countries we've done it kind of all over the world
05:55you know it's like i call it triangulation so you just kind of want to triangulate interesting i bet
06:00it's really hard to find the right people to hire in some of these markets how do you even recruit
06:06for
06:06that i mean one of the biggest blessings at empire is the continuity of our staff we have very low
06:11turnover um i still interview every single person that comes through the door we're at 300 employees
06:18now so as you can imagine at 300 employees i've probably done 3 000 interviews to get to 300 employees
06:24over 17 years that's like a real commitment and so you know i tell people um there's an art and
06:32a
06:32science to a and r when you're signing an artist but there's also an art and the science to finding
06:38executives and i think i have a strong eye and an emotional connection to finding the right executives
06:44that represent the culture that i want to build and so it takes a long time you just have to
06:49have a
06:49like a real commitment yeah i mean you alluded to this at the beginning that what you saw in hip
06:55-hop
06:55when you first started empire is that it was difficult to monetize and there's a lot of piracy issues at
06:59the time and then in reggaeton you saw the same thing do you think that that's kind of the empire
07:04secret sauce almost that you find these kind of diamonds in the rough that are incredible genres
07:09that just need better monetization infrastructure and just like a little love to get going i mean i
07:16wouldn't call it the secret sauce that's just a little seasoning there's a lot more to the sauce than
07:20that yeah fair enough people always ask me that every everywhere i go they're like what's the secret
07:24sauce and i'm like there really is no secret sauce man it's commitment to excellence and it's showing
07:31up every day like a lot of people want to take shortcut there's no shortcut to greatness you have to
07:36have
07:36like a lifelong commitment like are you in this just to hit a quick lick and make some money or
07:41is
07:41this really what you want to do i've been in the music business now for 36 years and i feel
07:46like i'm
07:46just hitting my stride right now yeah so just just a little seasoning like it's it's follow through
07:54it's you know waking up day in day out hitting the reset button you got to forget whatever challenges
07:59you had yesterday and you got to show up every each and every day with a renewed passion and a
08:04renewed
08:04energy like you just got started otherwise what the fuck are we doing excuse my language yeah fair enough
08:10so you guys have a big signing to announce can you take it away something in the latin music space
08:17for
08:17us today yeah so um on on the spanish-speaking side of the company and the latin side um we've
08:24made a
08:24really strong strategic hire in the publishing space and emilio morales um and then we also uh signed
08:31ozuna to publishing so nice pretty okay give it up ozuna all right that's exciting okay so tell me a
08:40little bit more about signing him so you signed him on the publishing side yeah um and i'm wondering
08:45like how long that process was to kind of court him and get him to come over because i know
08:49he was
08:49with cobalt for a bit yeah um i'm friends with the attorney so that usually helps you know but again
08:55those are like lifelong relationships that you spend time cultivating relationships and then people see
09:01you as like a source of truth and transparency and then they're more willing to bring their clients
09:06over to you because you make them look like a rock star too right and so um but we've been
09:11investing
09:12in in in writers in the latin space for a long time last year we won quite a few grammys
09:17in the latin
09:17space because one of our producers hydra hits wrote a lot on bad bunnies album so um it's just
09:24you know like building a company where we're touching so many people in so many parts of the
09:29world has got to be like one of the most rewarding things to my spirit it's like you're helping people
09:33create economy in places where it just hasn't touched and no one was paying attention yeah i mean
09:40latin america is obviously not a monolith every country has its own individual culture and individual
09:45sub-genres that they're um cultivating and i'm wondering as you have dove so deep into latin music
09:52what are some like is there is there a country or a sub-genre that you've discovered along the way
09:57that
09:58you really enjoy i think the thing beyond genres and beyond uh those things that i find fascinating
10:06about latin america is like unlike any other region in the world there's a unifying language that touches
10:13over 20 countries and so if you are um really inclined and strategic on the way you do marketing
10:22you can unify a lot of people really quickly because there's a common bond in the language
10:27you know you go to a place like africa and each country has like 10 languages you know north africa
10:33is arabic speaking and then even all of north africa the type of arabic they speak in morocco is entirely
10:38different than what they speak in egypt you go to east africa and they're speaking swahili you go to
10:43west africa and they're speaking five languages just in nigeria in latin america like 20 plus countries
10:50speak spanish and that's like very fascinating other than brazil the rest of latin america speak
10:56spanish for the most part unless you're in like guyana or belief um but that that alone is like a
11:03thing that galvanizes the community in ways that sure music is uh you know melody is a is a language
11:12that
11:12we all understand but you if you also understand the context of the words that kind of takes it a
11:17layer deeper and so uh i've always found that to be really special because you can't even do that
11:23with like english music yeah that's a really good point i mean latin music has become even stronger
11:29in the u.s it's already been strong for many years but i was just looking at lumina it's also
11:34dominating
11:35europe and parts of the middle east too yeah that's a great point yeah yeah i mean so i was
11:41looking over
11:41illuminate's mid-year report and it was saying that one in every 10 streams in the u.s now is
11:46latin music i think there was a long time where there were certain american listeners who were not
11:50as open to fully spanish language music if they didn't understand the language i'm shocked that
11:55it's only one in ten i know right no i think it should be more i know and it's it's
11:59a very high
12:00streaming genre anyway i mean i grew up in california so most of my friends growing up were spanish
12:06speaking yeah same texas so yeah it's uh i'm surprised it's only one in ten you know people
12:12are making claims saying it's amazing that it's one in ten i'm like i'm surprised like 30 or 40 percent
12:17of americans speak spanish i think that number is going to climb even more yeah absolutely i mean but
12:23interestingly as we've seen latin music just continue to gain ground in the u.s at the same time
12:28we're going through this period of a move towards conservatism donald trump's in the office there's been
12:34an immigration crackdown um and there's also been longer wait times for getting visas more
12:40difficulty getting visas and given the u.s is such a big market for so many latin stars that i'm
12:45sure
12:45you work with how do you navigate those challenges of you know touring in the u.s and reaching out
12:52to
12:52the u.s market at this time yeah those those have definitely been uh challenging times we've had to
12:58cancel tours we've had to cancel writing camps uh fortunately most of our artists have our spanish
13:05speaking artists have dual citizenship or have a ones that predate the crackdown but a lot of our new
13:10signings we've been having issues with uh latin american artists african artists middle eastern
13:16artists it's it's been a little bit of a challenge interesting and have you seen like the immigration
13:20crackdown primarily affect one genre over another like certain countries or are you just kind of seeing
13:25across the board it's just more difficult to get into the u.s it's just been pretty across the board
13:29yeah yeah yeah and people have um a fear of getting on planes and moving around yeah that's a good
13:37point yeah like quite a few of our artists we told them don't get on planes jump in a car
13:41and just tour
13:42through the car and so we've set we've routed tours where people just stay in the car gosh it's it's
13:48uh
13:48it's very unfortunate yeah it's a very unfortunate situation and um you know i guess all i can say is
13:55fuck ice but you know you know okay so we've been talking a little bit about publishing because you
14:05have this new signing with ozuna and people talk about publishing as like the business of collecting
14:10pennies or honestly probably more accurately micro pennies at this point um and i mean that is a big
14:17challenge and i've often heard people in the publishing space talk about you know like how
14:22far do we want to go to try to find those micro pennies all over the globe sometimes it costs
14:28more
14:28to find the money than the money actually exists so i'm curious how you approach that um how far do
14:34you
14:34have to go that's you know that's uh actually very true i just came back from the impf conference in
14:40majorca a couple weeks ago which is a big publishing conference and that's why you have aggregators who
14:46collect publishing in certain markets because you might go into smaller markets where you're spending
14:51thousands of dollars to collect fifty dollars um and so you have aggregators in those markets that
14:57will say i'll aggregate these four or five countries and i'll go collecting for you in these few countries
15:02and i'll take a small fee so you you just have to it's you kind of have to make sure
15:07that your reach
15:08doesn't exceed your grasp and just be calculated and very strategic on how you go collect um the
15:14most important thing though is to button down the registrations in a way because you know um publishing
15:20is shrouded in a lot of ambiguity and that's kind of how they've kept the veil over our eyes and
15:26kept
15:27the money from us um but as the world goes increasingly into monetized models and subscription
15:36models and things of that nature there will be a lot of publishing maybe not in public performance
15:41royalties but there'll be on the digital side to collect from the dsps and so we've been working
15:47really hard to build a global network on the publishing side to collect from all dsps globally um
15:53we're a very uh technology uh heavy company on top of being very culturally inclined so if you can nail
16:00the culture and you can nail the technology you can triangulate and probably get to the
16:05closest source of truth that you can yeah and as we're running low on time i'm wondering what genres
16:13and what subcultures are you bullish on to move into next is there anything that you haven't hit yet
16:19that you're really excited about you know i don't i don't think i look at it from a genre specific
16:26thing i look at it as finding artists and finding music that excites us as a company
16:32no matter what the genre is if the music is compelling the artist is compelling we'll find
16:38a way to cultivate it and bring it to as many listeners as possible and that's always been our
16:43mantra as a company find things that move move the needle move your spirit and keep you motivated to
16:49want to be you know doing what you do day in day out yeah well okay so every episode of
16:55on the record
16:56we wrap it up with the fun game it's called what would you cue and so i'm going to name
17:00out a few
17:00scenarios and i just want you to pick a song that just kind of reminds you of that scenario okay
17:05all
17:06right what would you cue to take you back to your childhood probably billy joel glass houses that
17:12was the first tape i ever bought the first american song i ever heard i grew up in an arabic
17:18speaking
17:18home so i didn't really speak english till i was about four years old um still rock and roll to
17:24me was
17:25my first like mainstream record i ever heard i heard it on the radio the other day i played it
17:30to my
17:30daughter and she looked at me like i was crazy yeah i love that okay what would you cue to
17:35represent your
17:36favorite era of music hit them up tupac yeah i'm from the west coast you have to you have to
17:44okay and
17:45finally what would you cue to remember the best concert you've ever been to oh that's easy the
17:50first concert i ever went to was nwa and it would be the police wow oh my god i apologize
17:57for all the
17:57vulgarity but i gotta keep it real yeah all right well that concludes our time so everyone give it up
18:03for
18:03ghazi and thank you so much for listening to this episode of on the record all right thank you yep